


Princess

by coaldustcanary



Series: Savior Fair [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pillow Talk, Prompt Fic, Star Wars References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2019-03-13 05:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13564161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/pseuds/coaldustcanary
Summary: Emma finds herself unused to the quiet, and Killian observes that she's not the only heroic princess to shoulder certain types of burdens.





	Princess

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to AO3 2016-08-01 as part of a collection of shorter works, reposted as a one-shot work 2018-02-03. This was based on the [August 2016 OUAT Positivity Challenge](http://tlynnwords.tumblr.com/post/148107745380/once-upon-a-time-positivity-project-august-2016) Day 1 prompt, "Princess".

The quiet was unfamiliar, and somehow loud.

Eyes closed, breathing even, Emma listened, and picked out each separate soft sound, trying to unknot the whispers that somehow had merged themselves into a cacophony. The gentle lap of waves underpinned everything else but was the easiest to pick out. They drummed softly against the ship’s hull, the noise echoing like a low bass note. It cajoled the occasional creak from the ship’s timbers, staccato counterpoints to the water’s thrum. Even muffled by distance the occasional gull’s jeered cry could be heard over it all. From below the Jolly Roger's deck, all of that noise felt far away, but it was no less intrusive.

It was the immediate sounds she had to strain to hear, even her own breath, drawn steadily in through her nose and blown out softly, as she tried to mimic the rhythms of the light doze from which she had awakened and to which she had been unable to return. The brief rustle of well-worn sheets when she would breathe deep or shift at all was so soft she could barely hear it over the thrum of her own pulse in her ears, a sort of white noise that nearly overwhelmed everything else but still rushed uncannily loud. And though he was pressed against her, warm and solid, so close that she could feel his steady pulse as easily as her own, she listened intently to hear Killian’s breath, quiet and steady with sleep, muffled into the pillow above her head.

Emma squashed the impulse to sigh in relief, both conscious of his arm wrapped around her, pinning the sheet in place and holding her tightly even now, as well as the absurdity of needing confirmation of his presence, considering the close confines of his bed. She had accepted the reality that it would take time before she awoke without fearing his absence, without needing to look, to listen, and touch to confirm that Killian was alive and with her. In the fairy tale-slash-acid trip-slash-dream sequence that had been her life these past few years, it made a certain kind of sense to seek and crave confirmation of what was real, when her senses hadn’t always served her as well as she had hoped. And so when she or Killian woke with gasp in the middle of the night and reached for the other, she understood. When Henry professed to teenage disgust at motherly affection but his lanky-armed hugs lingered around her and Regina’s shoulders, she understood. When her mother’s smiles turned watery when she’d bid Emma goodnight as they left Granny’s, or her father’s hand cradled the back of her head when he hugged her goodbye after dinner at her parent’s loft, still, she understood. You loved when you could, as you could, in case you lost. But when it was quiet, when even the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop had begun to dissipate, and Storybrooke felt like an almost normal place, Emma wasn’t at all sure what to think.

“You’ve loud thoughts, love.”

Killian’s arm loosened from around her as Emma’s eyes snapped open and she startled briefly at his sleep-thickened murmur, though she swiftly laced her fingers with his to arrest the movement and squeezed his hand gently by way of silent apology. At the faint touch of his lips pressing a kiss across the crown of her head, she let loose the sigh she’d been holding in for a while. After a moment’s pause, Emma let go of his hand and rolled on her side, scooting up the narrow bed to return the kiss, the faintest brush of her lips against his, and smiled softly before settling her cheek on the shared pillow, noses inches apart. She felt a momentary pang of guilt as she brushed a bit of unruly hair back off of his forehead with gentle fingers – he’d been sleeping heavily, to judge by the concerned but fuzzy gaze he turned on her, his brow furrowing under her searching look, though the corner of his mouth quirked up at her touch. Even now, with the world quiet and approximating something akin to normal while kept at arm’s length outside the snug ship’s cabin, good and deep sleep was a precious commodity for them both, and she hated to rob him of it.

“Alright?” he asked gently. It was a simple question, but it asked so much more, these days.

“Yeah.” It was an answer, soft on an exhaled breath, but not a complete one. Killian remained silent, tracing fingers soothingly along her back as Emma sorted her thoughts, casting about for the right words to describe a complicated feeling.

“This part is never in the storybooks, you know?” she ventured finally. Killian blinked slowly, processing the statement in the space between breaths, and then his sleepy smile became a very pointed smirk.

“Why, Swan, I’d have thought you’d be relieved that certain elements of our tale don’t make their way into the book’s narrative, though I admit to some interest in seeing an illustration or two of certain highlights,” he drawled, wicked amusement deepening the smile lines around his eyes as she felt her cheeks coloring at the implication – and the mental image – of their recent activities finding their way into the storybook’s chronicles. With an exasperated huff, Emma drummed her fingers lightly along his ribs in gentle rebuke, but found herself unable to resist a smile as Killian dissolved into a fit of breathless laughter at the light touch, grabbing her hand with his to prevent any further ticklish attacks.

(She tried to feel a little guilt over resorting to such a thing, but, God, she never tired of hearing him laugh.)

“Not what I meant, babe,” Emma said firmly as Killian twined their fingers together and pulled her hand to his lips to press a kiss to her fingers. He smiled against the back of her hand, waiting with a lifted brow for her to go on.

“It’s the quiet,” she said finally, rolling her head in a little shake against the pillow before plunging on, trying to put words to the unsettled feeling that had pulled her from sated and comfortable sleep.

“In stories, there’s hardly any mention of the in-between times. Not the kingdom’s peaceful years of plenty before the storm, not the relief in the time after defeating the terrible enemy, and not a lot of detail about the princess’s happily ever after, either,” Emma said. “It hardly feels like those times are real, even when we’re living them. They’re a line to set the stage and then they’re gone, or the story’s over. And sometimes I feel like I’m just waiting, even now, for another story to fall on us out of the clear blue sky. Like I’m waiting to get hit upside the head by another…storybook cliché, I guess. Because that’s all they seem to be.” She winced a little at the admission, dropping her gaze from Killian’s patient one, discomfited by the words that had tumbled out at his prompting. It felt, all things considered, like a deficiency of appropriate gratitude for every good thing in her life, including him.

“Given everything that’s happened in your life, love – in our lives – I don’t think that’s entirely without cause,” Killian said slowly, tilting his head down to touch his forehead to hers. Their breath mingled quietly for a moment before he gently nudged her chin up with their linked hands to press a tender kiss to her lips. Soft and relatively chaste as it was, it sent a shivery current all along her nerves and Emma hummed contentment against his mouth, worries fading briefly in the immediate pleasure of Killian’s touch and taste and presence. The wonder and marvel of it, of him, still left a part of her buoyant and anticipatory, like the heady scent of chocolate rich with spice before it touched her tongue, or the electric thrill that ran along her nerves just before she called up her magic.

(Not for the first time, Emma wondered vaguely if this was why her parents were so damn handsy with one another. True Love often came star-crossed, it seemed, to say the least, but there also appeared to be benefits.)

“It’s not that anything is wrong,” Emma hastened to add when they finally broke apart, a little breathless, sure at least of that much.

“And even if it was, what haven’t we managed, at this point?” he asked. Emma turned her face into the pillow with a groan and a muffled curse.

“Don’t do that,” she grumbled.

“Do what?” he replied, all (totally fake) innocence.

“Tempt fate.” Her response was emphatic.

“I think we’re really well beyond that at this point, don’t you?” Killian’s voice held a teasing note, but there was a certain resignation in it as well. Emma cracked open an eye and peered balefully at his wry expression.

“Fair,” she admitted, finally. “But I mean it. Nothing is wrong. Everything is very right. And I don’t know what to do with that, given the glaring lack of examples. How do I even write a story about happily ever after without, I don’t know…”

“Falling victim to every dramatic narrative trope in existence on the way?” Killian offered, a crooked smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t know, I’m hardly the local expert.”

“I can’t talk to Henry about this,” Emma began, brows drawn down at the very thought of having a heart-to-heart with her teenage son about her fears, regardless of the insight into stories granted by his Authorial powers. Killian shook his head slightly.

“That’s not what I meant, love - though I think you could,” he added, continuing on before she could renew her objections.

“But you’ve been writing your own story your whole life, Emma. To be sure, there have been some parts of it straight out of a storybook, quite literally, in fact, but you wrote your own endings to those stories.”

“ _We_  did,” Emma corrected gently, her expression softening as she remembered delighting in her first dance at a royal ball, the stab of fear that she’d lost everything in a dark forest, and the comforting touch of a hand holding hers, just as it was now.

“Aye, a bit,” he chuckled. “But you, Swan…you’ve turned every challenge you’ve ever faced on its head. Should this be any different? Considering your mother’s formidable example as both princess and bandit…”

“We are not talking about my mother right now,” Emma interjected firmly, wondering vaguely if she could get her arm under the pillow free enough to gently poke a finger into his ribs for that.

“Princess Leia, then,” Killian continued brightly, his fingers loosening a touch between hers as he prepared to move quickly to defend his unprotected middle from her threatened attack. Single hand notwithstanding, he could fairly easily pin her and save himself from the graze of her fingernails along his ribs if he so desired. (She was rather tempted, all the same. Those moments of swift movement and breathless laughter could lead to all sorts of interesting activities.) But Emma stilled instead and lifted an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Even if you came up with the pseudonym on the spur of the moment, you can’t seriously be telling me you’ve not considered the parallels before between yourself and the tenacious space princess from the cinematic masterpiece that is Star Wars.” He almost sounded offended, and he definitely sounded serious. Emma opened her mouth to reply, but found herself momentarily at a loss for words. Truth be told, while she’d always felt a kinship with Leia’s character, especially once she found herself intermittently fond of and furious with her own roguish pirate, it wasn’t an idea she’d much considered.

“Honestly, love, the similarities are rather on the nose, in both our cases,” Killian continued with a chuckle at her hesitation.

“I didn’t know you were that fond of Han Solo,” she finally managed.

“I admit I feel a certain kinship with the fellow – he is, after all, an infamous and daring captain. Dashing, handsome and all that, too. But, more importantly, he’s saved quite handily by the princess herself.” Emma snorted.

“By Luke, you mean.”

“Rubbish. The only person who could have planned that rescue attempt in the third act, including all of the contingencies for the rest of the heroes, was Leia. She’s the only one of that lot with any reasonable military experience, and the common sense to bring down the vile Hutt creature’s whole barge and save the rest of the galaxy from his depredations,” Killian said firmly, extending his finger for emphasis from their linked hands when her expression turned dubious.

“Don’t ruin my clever analogy. Point is, you’ve always made your way out of everything the storybook has thrown up in your way, regardless of what this world’s tales have to say about the matter usually. And even if the echoes of certain types of stories will always come back around to bother us for whatever bloody fated reason, you have Leia’s example to prove that even a princess can write her own sort of happy ending.”

“Comparative literature lessons from the Royal Navy, too, I wonder?” Emma asked, pretending to nip at his finger playfully, fond amusement warring with a disbelieving sort of wonder at the surreal nature of their conversation. Killian heaved a put-upon sigh, drawing his finger back from her mouth with a soft tsk.

“Some of us just enjoy a good story.” At her withering look, Killian’s amused expression turned to one of considered innocence.

“Alright, alright, will you accept self-preservation, at least, as an appropriate motivation to consume the narratives of this damned land so voraciously?” When her steady, searching look remained fixed – certain as she was about the incomplete nature of this particular truth, because really, he could hardly claim much in the way of an instinct for self-preservation at this point - his expression turned sheepish, a faint tinge of pink creeping over his cheeks and ears, to Emma’s delight.

“It gave me hope, back when I wasn’t sure what we would be, or could have,” he admitted finally, hesitantly. “I asked Henry to tell me a bit about this Princess Leia character, after you’d told me to be patient, and he showed me the films. Well, some of them, anyway, he implied there were others but that they didn’t count. But, all the same, love, I know it’s foolish…” She cut him off by gently pressing her own finger to his lips, smiling, but not daring to laugh.

“I love you.” The words came easily to her now, though they were no less true, and Killian’s answering smile still seemed like a gift, even when it edged into a knowing, playful smirk. He leaned over her and kissed her soundly, his hand cupping her cheek when he finally pulled back to draw breath and beam with delight.

“I know.”


End file.
